Article, Review of Magic Power Language Symbol and some thoughts on the occult culture

Taking the Path of Least Resistance in Magic has been posted by the good folks of the Right Where You are Sitting Now Podcast. I'll be writing more articles for them in the near future and look forward to continuing to work with them. I think they're a really good crew of people. Book Review Magic Power Language Symbol by Patrick Dunn

Overall, I was fairly impressed by this book. I think Dunn does an excellent job of explaining a lot of the theories behind language and magic, as well as showing how theories can be made into practice. He explores concepts of gematria, glossalia, metaphor, semiotics and much more and in the process makes all the concepts approachable and easy to understand. In fact, I think that's the strength of this book. It's written so that anyone can pick up the book, read about the concepts, and put them into practice, though at least in the case of gematria, readers will probably need to have a decent familiarity with Quabala.

I also liked his explanation of the semiotic web and the Defixio. In both cases he not only explains the theory, but also provides personal anecdotes and suggestions for how the reader can incorporate those practices into his/her work. I think his latest book is a good introduction to linguistics and magic, and he provides the reader some other works to explore once they finish his work.

I did have two minor issues which made this book a four out of five for me. The fourth appendix of the book has a bunch of practical exercises for the book. It seems odd that the exercises are placed at the end of the book, instead of incorporated into the book. I'm not sure if that a decision of the publisher or the author. The other issue is that while he does cover a lot of the connection between linguistics and magic, he doesn't cover much of the contemporary work occurring with linguistics or magic. He dedicates only a small section to the contemporary work. That said, this a good primer for linguistics and magic and how the two disciplines can be brought together. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in branching outward from more conventional approaches to magic.

Some Thoughts on Occult Culture

I was at Conflux this weekend. I had a good time, but while there I did a lot of thinking about occult culture and my own place in it. I've written in this blog, previously about my disillusionment with the occult culture, and yet I can't really say I'm disillusioned with occult culture overall. I think what it really comes down to is that I don't really feel I fit in with certain aspects of the occult culture...the aspects focused more on spectacle and image and performance. That's actually one reason I might not do Esozone again. While I'm looking forward to presenting my workshop there as well as meeting up with some people, I look at the program and I honestly wonder how much of what I'm teaching really fits with the overall theme. It's not that my work isn't focused on the other tomorrow...rather it's that I don't really relate well to the culture that has sprung up around esozone. I recognize it's occult culture of some sorts...I'm just not sure it's my occult culture.

But I've also been recognizing that there is an occult culture out there that I identify with and lately I've been starting to reach out to that occult culture. Not surprisingly who I'm reaching out to are people who have similar feelings of disenchantment with the direction occultism seems to be going in. They want something different, something more substantial, while also something that isn't so rooted in the past that it can't evolve. Lupa's suggested I try and find people I can work with who could develop some system or tradition...I don't know though...I'm mixed about that and yet I'm not...because I have a vision in mind...it just has to be with the right kind of person involved and I'm very picky with people, for a lot of reasons, which essentially boil down to being burned too many times by people I expected otherwise of. To work with someone in person would involve a lot of trust on my part (as well as theirs). Do I think it could happen? Yes...I know it can, because I actually am working with two different people closely, but it still comes down to finding the right fit, and if something actually develops in my immediate environment it will be with a small group of people initially.

And then too, I've increasingly been getting involved with other subcultures and the more time I spend in them, the more convinced I am that something really has to change with occult culture overall. It's not that these other cultures are better perse...it's just that there's something happening in them that I don't see as much in occult culture...what I see in other subcultures is less insularity, more communication and networking, more looking our for each other and supporting each other. The other day, a person who wanted to come to esozone and needed a place to crash and posted about it on an occult forum got no responses. I finally messaged her, because I really didn't want to see someone not taken care of...I wanted I suppose to reach out to this person looking for community and provide something of that to her. I suppose what I'm looking for is something of a tribe of sorts, or a system wherein we look out for each other. Lupa and I, have opened our doors a fair amount to occultists coming through Portland. I expect this will continue...I believe in hospitality, plus it's always good to get a chance to talk shop.

I have a vision of an occult culture and I think it's possible to make it real. The non-fiction line of Immanion Press is part of that vision made manifest...and it's time for more of that vision to be realized.

Explore related entries in the Library

• Aphrodite
• Pop Culture Magic 2.0: The Evolution of Pop Culture Magic
• Power Over Power With Experiment
• Pop Culture Magick: A How to Guide to Practical Pop Culture Magick

Magician's Reflection and The Pop Culture Grimoire is here!

I'm pleased to say that we now have copies of the Magician's Reflection by Bill Whitcomb and the Pop Culture Grimoire anthology, edited by Me available. If you've pre-ordered, we'll have copies out to you by Monday at the latest. Needless to say I'm very happy these books are out.

Several experiments in linguistic magic

Since starting to read Magic Power Language Symbol by Patrick Dunn, I've decided to try out a couple of his techniques, particularly the Semiotic Web and the Defixio technique, albeit with my own variations. The semiotic web technique is actually similar to my space/time sigil web technique. The essential difference is that you create two webs. One web is filled with the negative feelings, thoughts etc you might have about a situation. The other web is filled with conscious answers to those negative thoughts and feelings. I decided to try this technique out in regards to some negative thoughts and feelings that I was dealing within regards to my current job search. I wrote job hunt at the center of the web and then wrote all the negatives out. I then wrote job hunt again and all the conscious realizations I had about those negatives. I then took the two webs upstairs and called the Dehara into a circle and did a ritual to Agave the Dehar of banishment (and to me, also creativity, cause he's a dehar of fire and I associate fire with creativity). I took the negative web and burned it, and ended up having to slap some of the fire out, which put me into an altered state of mind quickly. I then meditated on the positive web, picturing it in my mind and integrating it into my altered consciousness. When that was done I thanked Agave by taking the ashes outside and offering them to him. I'm already noticed a more positive frame of mind about all my activities. I liked this technique. I plan on seeing how I can expand and improve on it...already have a couple ideas in mind for how this technique could be adapted for some space/time workings.

The Defixio technique involves writing out a statement of purpose and then offering it to the gods. I decided to try this, but offer it to the goddess Portlandia. I wrote my statement out and then put in the recycling bin, because Portlandia cares about recycling, and also because I want the message to become part of the natural cycle. I don't know how often I would use this technique, but it also could have some creative applications depending on which deity you worked with and how said deity wants you to deposit the defixio.

In thinking about these exercises, something which stands out to me is that there is a lot of room for creative touches, and we also have to remember to be creative. This is true for any technique or process...and by creative I really mean making a technique or process into you own process...into something that is personalized and works for you because it has an efficacy designed in the personalization of the technique. Personalization, to me, is a process of experimentation, and also a process of improvement. How do I make this process fit into my practice? How can I improve on it so it's even more effective for me. Granted, there's some techniques, which seem to be done just as is, but with writing you can be creative and that's why language is such an important tool of magic...it's open-ended and writ large with possibilities.

Some further thoughts on language and magic

Something I've been mulling over and discussing with a few friends is how concepts and practices of magic could be written about with as little jargon as possible. I recently just finished reading Aaron Hoopes book: Breathe Smart, where he does an excellent job of demystifying how to breathe. Instead of relying on far eastern terms and descriptions he boils the concepts down to fairly plain English, so that any person, regardless of background could pick up his book and read it and do the practices. I find that interesting and important, because I think that if the discipline of magic is to continue to progress or evolve, making it less jargon heavy as well as explaining the benefits of it will be a necessary step. While the fairly obvious use of language is to communicate, another less obvious use is the ability to obsfucate language, to utilize jargon so that only certain people with access to a discipline's discourse can understand it...in essence creating an elitism through language. You see this a lot in academia. Those who cannot master the discourse are weeded out. It doesn't necessarily mean a professor is smarter...s/he just knows how to jump through the hoops for that particular discipline and is very specialized.

On the one hand, I think this can be necessary with occult practices. My book are intentionally written to be a bit harder to read...I consider it a protection mechanism, in that it insures that if a person doesn't understand what I'm writing about s/he can't hurt him or herself. On the other hand, I also think being able to write about certain practices and techniques without jargon can be a useful exercise for a writer and also useful for helping people understand the benefits of particular practices. For instance, learning how to breathe properly doesn't have to be very mystical...it is, in fact, very relevant to each person's life. My point is that while there can be some value to jargon and technical terms, there is equal value in finding ways to write about a practice so that anyone could do it. I think language can provide the means to do that, but it also involves unlearning the jargon and to soem degree the expected discourse.

A book update

The radio show on language and its connection to reality is now up. But that isn't what I'm really excited about today. For the first time in...a while, I've been going through the material for my next book. I have three appendices and Eight partial chapters. I'll be adding some material in today and also taking what I have and deciding what fits into my upcoming workshop at esozone, Which will focus on the intersection between neuroscience and magic.

For me writing is a very particular process. I'm one of those people who won't write a book until I know I have enough research and experimentation done to justify putting a book out there. It always feels good when I can finally get to the moment where I can say: Yes I'm ready to write. I'm not there, but I'm much closer and the fact I can add more notes to the growing mass of book I want to write has me in good spirits about the development of not only the book, but most importantly the techniques and process I'm developing.

I do consider writing to be a magical process, and one of the more potent techniques a person can use. We see it put to good (or bad) uses every day. I've used writing to steer the direction of my life as well as imprint on myself actions I can take to manifest particualr goals. I've used collages to bring people into my life and set the tone for specific months. I think writing and language will always be an essential tool and expression of people. I don't forsee that changing anytime soon, and hope it never will change.

Radio show update and the next issue of silverstar is out!

Tonight I will be doing a show on the power of language from 9pm pst to 10pm PST. Listeners can call in at 646-652-2830. Also next week's show will be on the Competition Blues and ways to deal with competition as well as how to make your competition work for you. The latest issue of Silverstar magazine is now available. Features some excellent articles as well as some book reviews, including Multi-Media Magic by me!

Book Reviews and a meditation on Emptiness

Book Reviews: Grammar for the Soul by Lawrence Weinstein While not a typical book that one might associate with spiritual techniques, this book proved rather intriguing because the author examines how punctuation, tenses, clauses, passivity, etc is used in language to communicate and also empower an individual. As someone who consistently is interested in exploring the connection between language and spiritual techniques, I also found this book useful for considering how I could not only improve my writing, but also improve the efficacy of my magical workings when it came to using language.

Each chapter is only a few pages long, but the author manages to include a lot of information as well as samples for how grammar can be used to empower and communicate, as well as create personal change. The author's narrative is friendly and approachable. I didn't feel lost in a sea of grammar rules. If anything, I felt that I could easily navigate grammar's laws and use them to my benefit, both for my writing and my sense of self.

If I have one quibble with this book, it's that the author didn't include exercises for the reader. While the examples he used were illustrative of how to improve one's writing skills as well as how to use writing to effect personal change, the lack of exercises can keep the reader from realizing the book's full potential, unless they are already active writers. That said, I'd give this book a 4.5 out of 5.

Book Review: The Mind and the Brain by Jeffery Schwartz and Sharon Begley

This book was probably the most fascinating book I read about neuroscience and that's saying something since I find all of them fascinating. In this book the author explains neuroplasticity and how it continues to work in the brains of an adult as well as a child. The author also reviews many of the neuroscience experiments and projects done by various people as well as how those projects have confirmed the efficacy of mindful practices in controlling our habits and thoughts.

What I found really fascinating was how the author's work with OCD patients help them overcome that affliction by learning how to rewire the thought patterns. Equally interesting is the focus on how we can deliberately change our brains not only to heal, but also to continue sharpening our skills. For people interested in the intersection of neuroscience and magic, this book is a must read. 5 out 5

*******

A Meditation on Emptiness

Last night, while at the Deacon X fetish event, I again felt myself feeling empty...I think it was a continuing realization that with everything going on there, I had a sense of loneliness, a sense of not feeling satisfied...a realization, again, that this emptiness is not something that can be cured by the presence of anyone person...that it is something that can be ignored or sometimes not felt, but it is still a fundamental part of life. I felt a moment of anger and frustration...part of me wanted to walk out and just keep walking...but instead of doing that I sat down, and start a Taoist breathing meditation, opening myself up to that feeling of emptiness, accepting it. As I breathed I circulated my energy into that feeling of emptiness and felt my emotions swirl into the energy until I felt very calm. And I felt the emptiness reach out and start teaching me something I could do with the circulating energy to not only calm myself, but direct the emptiness I felt. I directed it into my hands, which I would later put to good use at said event ;)

Still what I came away with is that emptiness can be worked with...not just felt but worked with, which will make the oncoming elemental year very interesting indeed.

Magic as a Social Practice

In a recent post, I asked what the purpose of magic is. In some follow up conversations I've had, it's been suggested that magic is a social practice. If so, then the question arises how contemporary practices of magic display such social practices. In another conversation I had, it was suggested that in a lot of contemporary occult culture there is a focus on out cooling each other, a focus as it were on image as opposed to something more substantial. We see this attempt to outcool each other in workings which are focused on sabotaging the institutions of mainstream culture. For example the attempt send a lovebomb to Fox News, as written about in Generation Hex is a good example of a focus on image as opposed to content. We have to ask if that magical working really did anything substantial...and given that Fox news seems to be still running and operating, I'm not certain that the lovebomb did anything substantial at all, other than create an image of doing something. If magic can function as a social practice, it must offer something more substantial than image and a practice more significant than attempting to prove who is more cool or who is more subversive to mainstream culture. Indeed, we need to ask how magic actually contributes to our culture. Are we engaged in a practice where we actively contribute to the culture around us? How does the practice of magic contribute to our culture? In what ways is magic as a social practice, a practice that enables change of some kind to occur?

In a discussion I had with Vince Stevens, he suggested that taking the path of the Taoist mystic who sought to educate people about his practices in order to help them live better lives might be a path to consider. I think this approach to magic can be useful in the sense that it asks us to consider what kind of information we are gtiving out as well as considering the effect that information will have on the people hwo choose to pursue it.

What I think magic as a social practice really comes down to is finding ways to re-package magic as it were. I got involved in life coaching because I wanted to be able to offer skills I'd learned as an occultist to people who might not feel comfortable with the magical aspects, but could still benefit from a repackaging of those concepts into something they could understand, without all the negative connotations included...because despite what Crowley wanted, in terms of rehabilitating magic, I don't perceive it as rehabilitated in the public's conception of it. For magic to become a social practice it has to be re-packaged...reconsidered, as well as looking at how it is used for the benefit of all as opposed to the benefit of just the practitioner or a small group of people that practitioner knows. I think that as the concepts of intention and will are explored in neuroscience and physics and psychology, and as professions such as life coaching and alternative healing become more prevalent there is a chance to apply magical skills to the community and to help people become more connected to each other. I think that if this is to be to successful, we ultimately have to ask what the purpose of magic is and what legacy we want leave to the people who follow us, as well as to this planet we live on.

Elemental Love Working Month 11

This weekend is the one year anniversary of when Babalon indicated to me that I would be spending a year working with her and the element of love. This last month has been one of memories and regets, and I suppose that's fitting in some ways, because it's also been about me coming to terms with how much this year long working has changed me and is changing me.  And increasingly this last month I've also been coming face to face with the feeling of emptiness and hunger that has sometimes motivated my actions. Sitting with that feeling of emptiness and hunger has not been easy, but I recognize that it is something that has motivated my search for love. I think one of the deepest moments I had was when I was hiking with Lupa. She'd gone up the mountain trail a bit further and I was sitting and I began meditating about love and it's place in my life and I think I finally, really realized just how much I had treated love as a kind of cure all...a means of filling up that emptiness in my life, as if I could somehow find someone who would make it all better. I had, I realized, focused so much on filling that feeling of emptiness that any interaction in a romantic sense was ultimately based on that desire as opposed to being mindfully present with anyone. That's a hard realization to have because it calls into doubt any relationship I've had with a person. And yet by acknowledging that emptiness and just how much it's motivated my search for love, it's also helped me see who I am, as well as the cause for a lot of my behaviors. Later when I talked with Lupa I admitted to her just how much my desire to find particular characteristics in a person was motivated by trying to fill that emptiness...the realization that my relationship with her had been based on that and how hard it had been for me to accept that no relationship I could find would really address that feeling of emptiness. The responsibility for dealing with that emptiness ultimately falls on me...it only took me this long to realize that.

Throughout all of this I've felt Babalon's presence in a subtle way, though the other day it manifested a bit more directly when I ended up sitting beside someone involved in an organization focused on Babalon. I found it amusing, and also relevant...it's her showing me that she's here, that she's continuing to help me through this process. She took me on, and only required that I strip away all my illusions about myself. I have one more month with this year long element of love...Seems strange to think that this will be done in just a month.

Neuroplasticity, the Mind, and Will

Among the many books I'm currently reading, The Mind & The Brain by Jeffery Schwartz and Sharon Begley is certainly one of the more intriguing. Neuroplasticity, which is the brain's ability to create new neural connections or adapt current ones to different circumstances is somehting which apparently never stops occurring. The authors also argue that mindful practices can be used to harness and direct neuroplasticity and apparently have used such practices to help patients with OCD, as well as reporting on similar cases with patients who have tourettes and dyslexia. What this suggests to me, is that we have marvelous untapped resource in our brains, and that with the mind and it's capacity to consciously direct change (which I'd consider to be the will) we can harness neuroplasticity and use it. This actually is something I've written about before with the the neurotransmitter entities in Inner Alchemy, but I think it can be taken even further than that and a lot of the books I've been reading on neuroscience seem to agree with the direction that my experiments have been taking me toward.  It's also evidence to me that we need to continue looking at what's happening in other disciplines to see how it effects our own work as well as what we could achieve for ourselves. I think if more people were aware of how much control they could exert over their health, physical and mental, there would be a significant change in how those people dealt with difficult situations. There is so much possibility...It's just a matter of developing the techniques and processes that people can use to help themselves.

Upcoming Workshops in Oregon and other administrative matters

I rarely post about administrative issues so to speak, but here's a table of contents: Upcoming workshops in Oregon

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Upcoming Workshops in Oregon

I'll be presenting workshops at Portland Pagan Pride, The Pan-Pagan Gathering, Conflux, Esozone, and the Body Mind Spirit Expo. Full details about what workshops I'm presenting can be found at this link. If any of you are going to these festivals, come up and say hello.

Comments

I welcome comments on this blog. I've noticed on the lj syndication that people tend to respond to the post in lj. If you wish to respond, I'd ask you click the link at the top of the syndicated post. It will bring you to this blog and you can comment on the post directly, so everyone can see your comments.

You can get an email subscription to this blog!

Yes, you really can. If you scroll down on this blog's page, past the posts, where's there some weird formatting, you'll see a column on the right. Scroll down a bit further and you'll find a link which tells you that you can subscribe to this blog by email.

That's it! I'll be posting stuff of a more occult flavor tomorrow.

Visualization usually isn't

One of the things I read constantly in magical, occult, meditative, and other works is the need to "visualize" things.  One visualized light, or deities, or anything else.  When it comes to mental and magical work, visualize is pretty high in the buzzword bingo game. Visualization is of course very important as any meditator and magician can tell you, but I find that it's one of those words that's misunderstood and often misused.

When the term "visualization" comes up (when it's not being thrown around casually), it usually seems to mean one doesn't just imagine the site of something, but feels something intensely - site, sound, smell, etc.  One is not "observing" what is to be visualized passively, but is intimately involved with it as if it is a real object.  In my own writing I tend to think o fit as "feeling" an object or image.

Unfortunately, more and more I encounter people that think visualizing really is just conjuring up a visual image.  It's pale, context-less, and uninvolving for the most part.  We can let a thousand images pass before our inner eye and not feel any connection to them - and connection is what magic and meditation is all about.

I think the term "visualization" wormed its way into common usage simply because humans are visual creatures, and the term itself is convenient for the act of actively conjuring up an image.  Unfortunately it's too easy to take the term literally.

Now that being said, ask yourself what other commonly used words aren't actually as useful as they may seem in occultism . . .

Radio Show update

I just had a fascinating radio interview with Laura Sherman, the Chess Coach for the Imagine your Reality radio show. It's the first interview I did, but Laura and I had great rapport and I definitely plan on having her back on the show. She offered some really good insights about Chess and how it can be applied to your life. To listen to the show, please go here. I really enjoyed this show, particularly focusing on a topic such as chess and how it applies to manifesting your imagination into reality. Among other things we discussed how chess can improve your reading ability, how it can help you strategize your life, and how it can even be applied to your understanding of space and time. If any of you find the radio show interesting, I have two other episodes I recorded: How to turn Imagination into Reality and how to turn re-action into action. I'll be doing another episode on the connection between Language and Reality on Tuesday September 23rd at 9 Pm Pacific Standard Time. Listeners can call into the show if they want and I would definitely welcome listener input and questions.

Here's a summary of the upcoming show: In this show, we'll be exploring the connection between language and reality. We'll be focusing on how writing can be used to create reality, the value of affirmations, and how pre-writing exercises can help you not only write a good paper, but also plan how you'll take your imagination and turn it into reality.

Some readers of this blog might be puzzled by this kind of interview and it's applicability to magical practice, but listen, and I think you'll find some interesting perspectives on visualization and space and time, as well as how a game as chess can hone your skills. I might add, that part of experimentation is entertaining perspectives that seemingly have little in common with the usual perspective for how things are done...but how we learn is influenced by the willingness we have to do something different from everyone else.

A book review and thoughts on failure

I finished reading Paul Ekman's book: Emotions Revealed...Below is my review In Emotions Revealed, Ekman discusses how a person's face can be "read" to determine what kind of emotions s/he is feeling. The author then proceeds to focus on emotions such as contempt, disgust, sadness, happiness, and anger. In each chapter he has a model who shows different expressions. He explains in great detail how to read the facial expressions as well as what they seem to mean. He also has an exercise that people can do to use facial expressions to invoke feelings. Overall, it's a fascinating read, which shows how much the face is integral to feeling emotion as well as expressing it. At times, the book is dry and can be a bit of a slog to read through, but Ekman does a fairly comprehensive job of explaining the subject. I'm already eager to see how I can apply the concepts in my everyday communication.

Four out of Five.

It's a useful book, at least for my studies in identity work. I'll be curious to see what he produces down the line. I also think being able to recognize emotions as they are displayed on the face can help quite a lot in communication situations.

In other news...

I was reading a post tonight on livejournal by Ges on failure in magical practice. I agree with his sentiments. It goes back to something I've said, which is that even failure is a result...it indicates something about the magical process that you need to refine or correct. Without failure, how do we learn? Failure is something essential not only to magical practice, but also to living life. While I enjoy my successes, my failures define how I can improve my life (but don't define my life in and of themselves).

I was thinking the other night about the purpose of magic, and I think how a person deals with the failures that occur in magic speaks something to the purpose of magic, and what motivates the person to keep trying or to give up. Our failures challenge us to learn from them and adapt. I've never perceived failure as a negative experience, though my reactions my be negative toward it. In the end, however, I've had to rely on my discipline and go back to the drawing board so that I can figure out what needs to change in order to make something succeed.

This is especially true with magical experimentation, since experiments won't always go right. I can think of several experiments where what I thought would occur didn't happen and I had to go back to drawing board. Sometimes the failure is the most intriguing part of the process because it forces you to go back and look at your theory and assumptions and ask yourself why something isn't working the way you thought it would.

The Purpose of Magic

In a chat I had earlier tonight with Vince Stevens about occult culture one of the things we discussed is what the purpose of magic practical is. Specifically what does a person use magic for and what consequently are the benefits of practicing magic. I think purpose is an important lynchpin to consider within magical practice  and for that matter how one defines magic. The purpose provides the impetus for why a person does utilize magic. So what is the purpose of doing magic? What are the benefits of its practice? Simple questions to ask, but I don't think the answers as simple. On the one hand, it could be argued that getting a desired result is the purpose of magic, but that's a fairly short termed way of going through life. It doesn't necessarily address what will happen after you get that result. Additionally this kind of perspective is rather materialistic and does nothing to address the benefits of magic beyond gaining something.

On the other hand, the purpose of magical could be for other purposes than just obtaining results. The refinment of the self, helping other people raise there level of awareness, etc. The question then becomes where does magic fit into the overall community or the lives of other people. In other words what role in the community does the magician have? What is the purpose of the magician in the community? How does the magician serve the community?

These are some good questions to consider...I'll be putting some thought into them myself.

Bonding with the Land Part Two

The latest Radio show Next week's show will feature Laura Sherman the Chess Coach. We'll be focusing on what Chess coaching is, how it's used to imagine reality and the discipline it brings people. Not exactly an occult topic per se, but I think it will be illuminating. Plus I like to find spirituality in unusual places.

Bonding with the Land Part 2

Yesterday I got the Blue Dragon tattoo touched up and finalized. It was a two hour session.

As you can see the face has more detail and the tattoo is even bluer than it was before.

And here is the otherside.

Yesterday, getting tattooed was just as interesting as the first experience. I felt the spirit of the dragon come awake as the tattooing began. As I was inked I felt the dragon imbue more energy into the process, even as it drew on the pain I felt to connect it to me. I also used the same mental technique I used last time to not so much block the pain as not make it prevalent. For lack of better word, I felt the pain, but I also distanced myself from it. As the inking occurred I once again felt connection to the land, but this time it felt more like a sense of closure occurring. When the inking finished I felt the dragon slip back into the ink itself and I felt it settle very frmly into place...I also felt the connection to the land fit into me in a way that it hadn't quite before. It was a final fitting as it were. Afterwards, I felt uncharacteristically tired and a bit out of it for most of that day. I felt drained really...It wasn't the same as the first experience...it was the finalizing of that experience and that bit of waiting had I supposed built up and then was finally released.

Some thoughts on Linguistics and Magic, An interview with Sequential Tart, and Radio Show Reminder

Whew! That is one long title, isn't it? Interview With Sequential Tart

I was interviewed recently by Sequential Tart about Magic and the Self. I discuss some of my previously published works, but also some of my on-going work in identity and magic.

Some thoughts on Linguistics and Magic

I recently picked up Magic, Power, Language, Symbol by Patrick Dunn. I haven't cracked it open yet, but I'm looking forward to reading it, because one of my many interests in magical practice is the combination of it with Linguistics, as I've amply demonstrated in Space/Time Magic, Inner Alchemy, and Multi-Media Magic. It should come as no surprise to readers that my next book project will likely include something on language and identity in relationship to magic. The reason I'm not reading Dunn's book quite yet is that I'm currently reading a little book called Grammar for the Soul by Lawrence Weinstein. I'm already impressed by this book and the author has inspired me to read up on Benjamin Whorf's contributions to Linguistics. In this book, the author looks at how punctuation can be used to evoke emotional states of empowerment and personal change. A colon, for instance, can be used to get noticed by people. And you know...he's right so far. As I've read this book, I've found myself nodding in agreement and underlining passages...and thinking...I've seen this focus on punctuation in multimodality before, but never phrased in such an elegant way. What pleases me the most about this book is that the author looks at how the placement of words, phrases, and punctuation can make all the difference in the mood evoked by that word and punctation usage...it's not NLP, but it is a study of the power of the word.

I think linguistics is one of those disciplines that magicians should start studying on day one of their magical practice. Because so much magical practice revolves around the almighty word, it makes sense that we should focus on the discipline that already studies how the word is used. One of my favorite authors, William S. Burroughs experimented frequently with the power of the word and how it could be used to shape reality. My own experiments with words have always proven to be fruitful: I even evoked my wife into my life using a collage and have occasionally evoked other people as well. Now that's magic at work!

I've always felt that writing is one of the most powerful mediums of magic. It conveys more than information. It conveys emotion, virtual environments, memes, concepts, viruses and so much more...and it's something we can experiment with fairly easily once you know the rules.

Radio Show Reminder

My next show will be today, September 9th at 8Pm Pacific standard time.

Subject : Change your Re-Action to Action!

Summary: Sometimes, whether we intend to nor not, we sabotage ourselves with our reactions. A reaction is a pattern of belief or emotion that causes us to act in a particular way. In this show, I will show how you can change your limiting beliefs and reactions into actions that help you manifest your imagination into reality.

Listeners can call into the show at: (646) 652-2830

On the value of Inner Alchemy

I'm copy editing a book for Immanion Press called Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot: A Troubleshooter's Guide to Magic by A'Miketh, and I'm really impressed by what I'm reading, because this guy has managed to explain some complex concepts in fairly approachable language, and more importantly he's cleared stated the value and need for doing external work before getting into all of the flashy external magical work. And I have a lot of respect for that. I was chatting with Bill Whitcomb earlier tonight about how change occurs in society, and we both agreed that change takes a long time to occur when it's done right, because the best way that change occurs is through changing the internal reality of yourself and modeling that change to others. It's not nearly as dramatic or active as trying to protest political rallies or trying to throw a revolution because you dislike what other people are doing. It's a much slower form or change...it takes time and some effort to create change in yourself that brings you to healthier patterns of behavior and communication.

But I would take that kind of change over the change of a revolution, because a revolution inevitably only replaces the previous oppressors with the people revolting against them. That is to say in a revolution the only thing that changes are the people in charge. What doesn't change is how those people treat other people, because for a revolution to usually be successful, it is violent...and that same violence twists the people who beget it, so that they become what they hate, because having overthrown a previous government, they quickly begin to fear that the same will happen to them. The French revolution and the Bolshevik revolution and revolutions in China (both in the early and mid twentieth century), and to a lesser extent the American revolution are good examples of this process, where change is promised and a government is overthrown and ultimately what replaces it is more of the oppression that the revolutionaries claimed they fought against. This incidentally is one of the reasons I'm skeptical about the so-called good intentions of the activists...I see them as just another form of political extremism and should that extremism replace what we currently have, I don't believe it will be any better than what it replaces.

I favor instead a revolution that comes from within a person...a fervent desire to change the self, to recognize that to change the world around us, we must first be willing to take responsibility for our own actions and thoughts. Instead of blaming others for the woes of the worlds, we should take responsibility for ourselves and what we can change...our attitudes about others, our actions toward the environment we live in and do it in a manner where we model how we want the world to change, but without trying to force that change down everyone's throat. I imagine that may sound idealistic, but in copy-editing this book and reading this person's thoughts on how to create a system of mindful awareness and internal change mechanisms in western practices of occultism, I see more than idealism...I see a methodology and practice that can make it happen, but ultimately requires a voluntary to make it occur. I turned to Taoist and Buddhist breathing and meditation techniques to develop a system for internal work that was also mixed with Western techniques for pathworking, but in reading some of Dunlap's ideas, I also see some hope for Western occultism developing some of those same internal practices without having to borrow as much from Eastern practices.

It seems to me that when a culture or society doesn't have a system of some sorts for developing reflective and consciousness awareness of emotions and reactions and triggers, it is very hard for that society to change. And really, for this kind of internal work to really bear results, you need everyone in society doing the work...not just some monks in a mountain hideaway. This is why I hope such practices will continue to become more prevalent in this culture...so that people can really be aware of what sets them off and work on deprogramming the bad triggers, while also figuring out who they really want to be and how they want to manifest that to each other and the world at large. I think if such practices were more prevalent there would be much less violence, much more cooperation, and also much more of a sense of connection to and with each other as well as an awareness of the responsibility we have to each other, to ourselves and to the environment we live in, aka, to the entirety of this Earth and universe.

Radio and Emotions

Yesterday I did my first radio show, You can listen to it here. I'll be doing another on Tuesday at 8 pm pacific time on how to dissolve blockages. Earlier today I was interviewed by Al Anderson for the Ascending Way show.  You can listen to the interview here.

I also sent off the finished version of Bill Whitcomb's The Magician's Reflection and the anthology The Pop Culture Grimoire: A Pop Culture Magic Anthology. So overall a busy day and I'm working on an article as well for a magazine.

I'm also reading (among other books) Emotions Revealed by Paul Ekman. You might recalled I mentioned Ekman's work with FAC - Facial Action Coding. So far I've found this book fascinating and engaging, not the least because the writing style is definitely not as dry as what is usually found in scientific writing. One point he makes is that we don't feel emotional about everything. I found this interesting, because it is rather easily to believe that one is always feeling emotion, and yet I know I experience times where about the only emotion I could be feeling would be consider calmness...I've never really thought though it was possible not to feel an emotion. I'm not sure if I agree with his conjecture and he does note that some scientists disagree with him, arguing instead that what we feel is too slight to register in an overt manner. It's something I'll have to mindfully observe.

He also identifies nine paths to generating emotion, though thus far he's only written about one, in which we sense that something is about to effect are sense of well-being. I'll be curious to see what the other routes are.

His work is fascinating and relevant to the internal work I've discussed as well as to the blending of neuroscience and magic. I consider emotions to be an integral component to magical workings, given how much they motivate our actions it stands to reason that they play a similar role in the practice of magic. They are a basic component to life, but an essential one as well.

I have a few more books to read, just a few...and then the research will be done.

The process of internal work

I think the hardest aspect of internal work is when you face the root of the issue that you're working on.. On one hand, you now know what you're really dealing with. On the other hand, you're also faced with the question of, "Now what?" I was thinking of that today as I walked around the local park, working through an issue that I've been struggling with the last couple of weeks. I generally find in doing internal work that there are four stages that occur. The first stage is a sudden realization that something is bothering you. You can't quite pinpoint what it is that's bothering you beyond dealing with the immediate experience that you're involved in. That immediate situation is really just a symptom of the actual problem. It definitely needs to be addressed, but chances are it's based on a behavior pattern that can really deep into the past. It's a reaction to the original core issue...but you don't know what that issue is yet...you can identify characteristics...I feel jealous about X or this made me angry, which comes in handy later on, but the symptom is just that...it's a symptom...it's pain's it's something sending a message that something is wrong. Once you've dealt with the symptom, you still have a ways to go.

Stage 2 is digging. You start comparing the characteristics of the latest situation with the characteristics of previous situations where you suspected you acted in a similar manner. For instance, if you found yourself competing with someone because you felt jealous, you would look in your past for related incidents with other people. By finding a relationship, you could then begin to trace the issue back to the root cause of it.

Stage 3 is discovery of the root cause, or if you will the root emotion. For instance, just because you feel jealousy in incidents where you compete with someone, you shouldn't assume that jealousy is the motivating emotion. Remember, it's a symptom, so while jealousy is an emotion in its own right, it may just be a symptom of what you're feeling at your core. Perhaps, for instance, you are competing and feeling jealous because you really want to feel acceptance from other people. Acceptance is definitely not the same emotion as jealousy, but it can inspire jealousy depending on how acceptance is obtained. Once you know what the root cause is, you're at the now what stage. You've identified the root problem, and you're consciously aware of it. Congratulations! But now you have to figure out what you will do with what you've discovered. This can be hard to figure out, because you're also facing what really motivates the behavior you want to change and facing that root cause can be a bit of a doozy.

Stage four is figuring out what you'll do now that you know what's motivating your behavior. You've got a few options:

A. Do nothing. This might seem like the easiest, but unless you are completely comfortable with the behavior and the consequences that result from it, this will come back and bite you in the ass until you decide to really make a change.

B. See a therapist. Working with a therapist can help you explore these issues safely with another person present. Also the therapist will to some degree hold you accountable to make a change. This option can be combined with option C

C. Utilize a form of mindful awareness to consciously monitor yourself. This is greatly enhanced by pathworking, meditation, energy work, or some other form of internal work. This can be done without option B, though I'll note this can be tough work and will challenge you because as you dissolve the issues, you also leave room for more subtle issues to rear their head. I recommend that if you choose to do only this option that you also make sure that you know you can stop and see a therapist at any time. Don't go deeper than you are comfortable with. I will note that using meditation and mindful awareness for the last three and a half years has definitely helped me dissolve a lot of unhealthy behaviors, but it's been intense work and sometimes fairly wearing. I know what keeps me focused on doing it is the awareness that as I continue to do this work, I am getting healthier and happier and I consciously know what informs my choices.

I am still doing a lot of internal work. The stages I described here, are pretty accurate to the kind of work I've been doing. Internal work isn't necessarily glamorous or something very overt. It doesn't require much in the way of magical tools, or sigils, but the payoff I think is that you are more conscious of your choices and can control yourself more readily...and the need to do magic to solve problems actually goes down because you're no longer acting out your unhealthy behaviors.